Obama on ACA: ‘Armageddon has not arrived'

President Barack Obama celebrated the end of the Affordable Care Act’s first open enrollment period by announcing that at least 7.1 million Americans have signed up for insurance through exchanges.

“No, the Affordable Care Act hasn’t fixed our long broken health care system, but this law has made our health care system a lot better,” Obama said before a large and happy crowd Tuesday afternoon in the Rose Garden.

And the critics, he stressed, have been proven wrong: “There are still no death panels. Armageddon has not arrived. Instead, this law is helping millions of Americans.”

While the president did sound like he was enjoying a victory lap for much of his speech, he made clear that some bumps still lie ahead. “I want to make sure everybody understands in the months, years ahead — I guarantee you — there will be additional challenges to implementing this law. There will be days when the website stumbles. I guarantee it,” he said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was on hand, seated in the front row, but did not get a shout-out from the president, though congressional Democrats did. Allies including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Reps. Sander Levin and Charles Rangel were in the crowd, as were adviser Valerie Jarrett and National Economic Council Director Jeff Zients, who led the “tech surge” to put HealthCare.gov back on track after its initial troubles.

For all the fanfare of the Rose Garden speech, White House officials pushed back ahead of time on the notion that the event was a victory lap, even as allies celebrated the numbers. “We are feeling good. It’s been amazing to see the consumer interest and the work that’s been done on the ground,” said Anne Filipic, president of Enroll America. She added: “Yes, I am smiling!”

Even as the enrollment numbers started ticking up, the administration still didn’t feel good about how things were going. Though the administration had anticipated a surge of interest right before the deadline, the level of traffic on HealthCare.gov in the final hours Monday took officials by surprise.

Obama first learned on Monday night that enrollment numbers had surpassed 7 million, but not by hovering over a computer as midnight struck.

Taking advantage of a warm evening in Washington, Obama turned their nightly “wrap” meeting into another one of their famous walks on the South Lawn — like one they shared late last summer in planning a response to the Syria crisis — shortly after 6 Monday night, the kind that have come at several other critical moments for the president in the past six months.

The numbers were trending strongly, McDonough told Obama. Hitting 7 million was looking like a safe bet. Obama headed up to the residence and didn’t get another official update until Tuesday at 10:30 a.m., when the number had hit 7.04 million and was on the rise.

With the open enrollment period over, the administration turns its attention to implementation, aware of how much Republicans will be looking to make of every hiccup — and how shallow their reservoir of trust and goodwill is with voters and the media.